Episode 2287 Scott Adams: CWSA 11/09/23, Who Won The GOP Debate? TikTok Stuff, Fun News & Coffee
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Content:
Politics, LAPD Robot Dog, Steven Crowder, Nashville Manifesto, GOP Debate, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Governor DeSantis, Scott Adams
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Good morning everybody and welcome to the Highlight of Human Civilization.
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Ah, so good.
So amazingly good.
Well, I know you're here to hear about the debate last night, and we will definitely get to that, but we need some palate cleansers first.
This would be news that's not terribly important, but it might be fun.
For example, the LAPD deployed a robot dog during a standoff with a perp who was on a bus.
The fun part about this story is, you know, the perpetrator's on a bus, he must have been armed, and the police are trying to get him off, but he won't get off.
And then you see the little robot dog do, do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
And by the way, that's what the dog hums to itself, I think.
We don't hear it out loud, but I feel like the dog When it's walking, the robot dog is going something like... Because robot dogs don't care about monsters, they're just happy all the time.
Anyway, the robot dog just walks over, and it walks up the stairs of the bus, and as soon as the robot dog is on the bus, the perpetrator is like, I'm out!
I'm out!
I did not count on robot dog.
I had everything worked out in my mind, shoot out, Did not count on Robot Dog.
So, Robot Dog appears to be a good strategy for the police.
One big success so far.
And it makes me want to get a Robot Dog.
Maybe my dog Snickers could have a little friend.
A little Robot Dog.
Because a Robot Dog would be just exactly the right thing for home defense.
Can you imagine, you know, if you have a two-story house?
As I do.
And you're upstairs in bed and then there's an intruder.
But downstairs there's a robot dog who immediately spots the intruder and challenges it and rings your phone up into your bedroom.
Who would stay around if they ran into a robot dog?
I mean, seriously.
You're a robber and you come into a house and a robot dog comes up to you?
You're going to leave really fast.
I mean, a real dog will make people leave.
But a robot dog would scare the shit out of me.
I would be out of there so fast.
Well, I asked a funny question on Twitter that you should go take a look at the comments.
I said, have any of you men ever been conned into revealing your feelings and vulnerabilities to a romantic partner?
If so, at what age did you learn it was the world's second worst advice?
You know, the first worst advice being be yourself.
And the third worst advice was follow your passion.
But right there at number two is showing your feelings to your romantic partner, if you're a man.
And oh my God, you have to read the number of men who believe they destroyed relationships simply by being honest.
And the other man is like, nope, we learned that trick, you know.
And I have to admit, as a young man, I thought that it might be a positive to reveal my feelings.
And now it just was funny.
It's like I had no idea what even a woman was.
I was so unprepared.
So if there's anything I can tell the young people watching this, don't reveal your inner vulnerabilities and your feelings To your romantic partner?
Unless you want it to end immediately.
The comments of men who said, and I watched the love like disappear from her eyes.
All right, so that's your advice for the day.
Do not reveal your feelings if you're a man.
Here's some good news.
There's actually a pill that's a lung cancer curing pill.
That has amazing results.
I guess in the test, it reduced the five-year risk of recurring cancer by up to 73%.
So these are people who had their cancer treated, and there was a 73% reduction in it coming back.
Wow!
Wow!
And the risk of death was reduced by 51%.
There's a pill that reduced lung cancer death by 50%.
Holy cow!
You know, there's a weird thing happening in the world right now.
I'm getting an important question here in all caps.
Aren't you going to rub your peen over Vivek?
Well, yes, I will.
I will be... Thanks for asking.
I'm glad I interrupted this for that.
But anyway, one of the things happening I think is, you know how it's always the darkest before the dawn?
Doesn't it feel to you like everything's going wrong?
But at the same time, if you were to look forward one year, the most likely outcome one year from now, doesn't everything look good?
Isn't it weird?
Literally, everything looks bad at the moment.
Just everything.
Honestly, everything looks bad.
But one year from now, if you didn't do anything different, if all you did is straight line one year from now, a lot of things would look a lot better.
We'll talk about some of them.
But this is one.
I mean, here we're all, you know, we're all in our day and science is out there curing lung cancer.
One of the biggest scourges of You know, human existence.
We just took a big bite out of that.
I say we like I had something to do with it.
Stephen Crowder says that the whistleblower on that Nashville manifesto has not been identified and the seven police officers who were suspended are not the whistleblower.
So apparently not only Has that manifesto not been released?
Which was sketchy.
But Crowder somehow got a copy of part of it.
But apparently the Nashville PD is punishing the wrong people for it.
So Nashville PD has some explaining to do.
But interestingly Crowder says they didn't get the right person.
Here's some maybe good news.
Maybe not.
But I love it anyway.
So Mitt Romney, who's not going to be running for re-election, and Joe Manchin, who famously sometimes crosses over from Democrat to Republican leaning policies, got together and they want to propose a fiscal commission to rein in the national debt.
Now, remember I told you, everything's bad at the moment, but almost everything looks better in a year.
Would it be a good thing to have a national debt commission?
Probably.
I mean, it's better than doing nothing.
I can't guarantee that they would produce something that would be a benefit.
Probably they run into the same problems everybody would.
But it's not nothing.
And I have to give some attention to Mitt Romney.
He's not running for re-election, but he wants to take on the hardest problem in the country.
The debt problem is the hardest problem.
Now, you know what I would love for somebody to work on the debt problem?
Somebody who doesn't need to get re-elected.
Somebody who is a financial brilliant guy.
That's what Mitt Romney is.
And somebody that you can't tell is a Republican or Democrat sometimes.
You know, they call him a rhino.
So, here's what I love about this.
This is sort of a shout out to Mormons.
I really love the Mormon culture.
I really think, honestly, that Mitt Romney only wants to do this because it's the right thing to do.
Like, I don't see a play, do you?
Does he make money off of this?
No way.
Does he get re-elected?
He's not running.
It's kind of a brilliant play.
So maybe it's like a long-term play to run for president or something, but I don't think so.
Because if you're working on debt reduction, you're making half of the country hate your guts, and that's not going to change.
And Manchin shows his value to the country again, just by being willing to not be always a team player.
Very valuable.
Very smart.
So I love everything about that.
Now if I had to guess, I don't think it will produce a result.
But that's even more admirable.
Somebody taking on something that looks almost like a suicide mission, still willing to do it.
Give me some more of that.
I like the attitude more than I like the potential for a solution.
Do you know what the right solution is?
Every budget cut 2% a year.
That's it.
Do you think that wouldn't work?
Yeah, it would work.
It would work.
Because you'd have an entire year to save 2%.
Everybody could do that.
And then the next year, you're like, oh, I can't do another 2%.
But you'd have a whole year to figure out how to do it.
You're going to have robots of AI and automation.
Yeah, you do it.
If you've ever, here's some experience for you.
I used to be the budget guy.
For Big Bank and I would be the one who would tell them what the budget was and how much it was going up and I would collect their little inputs and put them all together.
And then I would show them to my boss and it would be a bottoms up budgeting process.
So every manager would have to say, forget about what I had last year.
If I were to start from scratch and reconstitute my group from scratch, this is what I would need.
So that's what Vivek wants to do.
He wants to have a bottom-up process where everybody justifies every part of their expense every year.
You don't just get another 10% because you said you need it.
So that's good fiscal discipline.
Do you know how that works in practice?
Now remember, I'm endorsing Vivek Ramaswamy, and now I'm going to criticize his idea.
Just so you think I have some independent thought.
So the idea is zero-based budgeting, Vivek's idea, which is you have to defend your budget every year in detail.
Now doesn't that sound like a good idea?
Compared to, hey I need 10% more, but forget the details.
Much better.
Here's how that works in practice, because that used to be my job at a big company.
I would make the, well, it wasn't my orders, but the departments had to do zero-based budgeting.
They had to collect it up and give it to me, and then I had to take it to the boss.
So I get all this zero-based budgeting and I take it to the boss whose final decision it is.
What do you think he did?
Do you think he looked at all of the arguments of all of the departments and each of the projects and then figured out which one is justified and which one wasn't?
No.
How could he?
Do you think he knew enough about each of the, every asset that was involved in every project?
No.
Do you know what he did?
I'll give you an impression of how he talked.
Okay, very good, very good.
Go back and tell everybody to cut their budgets by 10%.
And I said, what?
He goes, yeah, that's how much money we're going to have, so cut everybody's budget by 10%.
And I said, well, yeah, let me explain it.
Maybe you've forgotten.
That I went back and found, you know, it caused them to work in detail to figure out what they needed and now this is the thing.
So cutting 10% is irrational.
And then my boss said, they can do it.
Just tell them to cut it 10%.
And I like really sheepishly go back to each of the department managers and I'm like, He says, cut it 10%.
What did every one of them say?
Oh my God, my God, there's no way I can cut it 10%.
There's no way.
You go back and tell them that I just can't do it.
I've already cut it 20% compared to what it should be.
I mean, I've already used fiscal discipline just to get it down to this.
There's no way, no way in any world that I can cut it 10%.
So I go back to the boss, and I say, he says he can't do it.
Just can't be done.
What's the boss say?
Calmly.
Yeah, just tell him to do it.
That's it.
So I went back and told them all to do it.
He said, yeah, it's not negotiable, apparently.
Just cut it 10%.
How many of them succeeded?
All of them.
All of them.
I mean, on average, all of them.
Now, during the year, people would negotiate for a little more for a good reason or something like that.
But basically, yeah, they all cut it 10%.
It was fine.
Now, that lesson has stayed with me forever.
Anytime you have a big, complicated budget about anything, you can cut it 10%.
So cutting it 2% a year and then just keep going 2%, 2%, 2% would be exactly the kind of discipline you'd want.
I like Vivek asking them to justify their budget, because that makes them go through the process of understanding all of its parts.
Because even the person in charge of the sub-budget doesn't always know all the parts.
So if they have to really work on, you know, what is, what isn't, by the time the order comes down to cut the budget, well, they know all their parts.
And they've ranked them already.
So it's not as hard.
They go, ah, dammit, I really wanted this new thing, but I can live another year without So, Vivek is absolutely right that they should do the bottoms up, but then when he gets his top number, he should just tell them to cut it.
And that'll work.
That will work.
I don't know if this debt commission will work, but Vivek's plan would absolutely work.
All right.
I saw Dr. Drew on Gutfeld's show, Gutfeld!
Exclamation.
And they were talking about mass hysteria in politics and cognitive dissonance and stuff.
And listening to Dr. Drew talk sort of just matter-of-factly about the mass hysteria that we think are politics, and you talked about Sam Harris, somewhat matter-of-factly, like it's obvious to all of us, and it is I think, That Sam Harris is just descending into cognitive dissonance.
That was Dr. Drew's phrase.
And it's really, really obvious that he's descending into cognitive dissonance.
I think everybody can see it.
But my only point about this is that we've gotten to the point where we're talking casually about the intersection between mental illness and political opinion.
Which I feel like is a step forward.
Again, my larger theme, that everything's bad at the moment.
But a year from now, everything looks better.
And I think it's a major, major step in our understanding of our environment, and therefore our ability to fix it, if you can have somebody who understands this world, you know, a medical professional of note, who can tell you, yeah, this is not politics.
How important is that?
To know what is politics and what is mental health.
It's super important.
I would argue it's among the most important things we have to get right.
So simply the fact that somebody with a national reputation, medical background, can speak matter-of-factly about, yeah, this person is having probably a psychological experience that is independent from any political opinion, and you should treat it that way.
I feel like if we could learn to do that more accurately, it's just a huge step forward.
For example, modeling this idea, you already know, I've told you this, that a lot of the trolls that I respond to now, I ask them if they're drunk, and you would be amazed how many people don't reply after that.
Do you know why?
Because they're drunk.
It's actually, you think you're dealing with somebody who's got this radically different idea from you, but quite often, they're just drunk.
And the number of times I can make the conversation stop dead when I ask that question is really shocking.
The other thing I do, which doesn't stop the conversation, but at least stops it at my end, is I say, I'm sorry they did this to you.
Or sometimes I say, I'm sorry that your news sources have done this.
And from that point on, after you've stated that, I'm sorry, your news sources did that, do not engage in detail.
Do not.
Don't try to, you know, even if they make a good point after that, don't engage.
Once somebody has revealed that their problem is some kind of news brainwashing problem, you should call that out until they're sick of hearing it.
You want them to be tired of hearing that I'm not going to debate you because it looks like something's going on there.
It looks like you have an issue that maybe isn't about us.
It looks like you have an issue with your news sources.
And if you like, I can help you with your problem.
But we're not at the point where we can debate, because what I know is everything you've heard on the news, plus everything I've heard on the news.
What you know is just what you heard on the news.
So you're operating at roughly half the information I am, so having a debate with you, especially when you seem to have some kind of psychological condition going on, how could that ever be productive?
So you need to label it for what it is, And then bow out when you see it.
If it's just cognitive dissonance or drunkenness, don't debate.
Just don't.
There's a story that says Maine is full of weed farms owned by Chinese.
There are more than 100 properties in Maine, all over Maine, where they're illicitly growing cannabis in rural Maine.
So I'll be moving to rural Maine Because apparently that's a good place to make money.
If you have a hundred illegal weed plants, wait a minute, how does anybody know that there are a hundred properties if they're illegal?
There's something wrong with this story.
Shouldn't there be something like some law enforcement or something?
And maybe they just don't prosecute because they don't care.
I don't know.
But apparently this is a big problem.
I don't know if these are just opportunistic Chinese Americans who just thought this would be a good job, and maybe they didn't have as many traditional opportunities in Maine.
So it could be just a lot of people telling other people, hey, I started a weed farm, you should do it too.
So maybe it's just that.
I don't think it looks like a Chinese plot.
Do you?
Except that maybe some money is going back to China.
So I don't know what to think about that one, but it's interesting.
Speaking of China, more Chinese executives are disappearing.
So two more have been listed as gone for a while.
It's in the context of a corruption clampdown.
Do you think that's really what's going on?
Do you think the Chinese executives from companies are disappearing because of a clampdown on corruption?
To which I say, maybe.
But wouldn't it be just as likely that the corruption itself is clamping them down?
Wouldn't it be just as likely that President Xi is putting pressure on them to do something the government wants, including kicking back money, maybe?
And they'll say, if you don't give us what we want, we own the news, and we're going to tell the news that we shut you down because you're corrupt.
And they'd be, wait a minute, I'm the opposite of corrupt.
I know, but we need you to be corrupt.
Hold on.
You're saying, unless I act corrupt, you're going to put me out of business and put me in jail for being corrupt.
Exactly.
That's what it feels like.
We have no way of knowing.
I can't read minds.
I don't have any secret sources.
But I wouldn't take it on face value that corruption is the reason these people are disappearing.
Doesn't smell right, does it?
There's like a little odor to that.
It's like, maybe.
Yeah, maybe it's about corruption, but maybe it's not.
All right, here's my branding idea for Republicans, or maybe just a way to think about it.
Tell me if somebody's already said this, or did I already say it, or were you already thinking it?
Maybe you're ahead of me.
Two sentences to brand Democrats and Republicans.
You ready?
Democrats want the government to protect them.
And Republicans want to protect citizens from the government.
What do you think?
Democrats want the government to protect them.
Which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with that.
And Republicans want to protect you from the government.
Which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with that.
See, what I like about it is that it doesn't say anybody's an asshole.
Right?
Usually that's sort of built into any political framing.
What's wrong with Democrats wanting the government to protect them?
Nothing at all.
Nothing wrong with that.
What's wrong with Republicans wanting to protect you from your government?
Nothing.
There's nothing wrong with that.
So those are just different approaches.
Now, does it make sense to you that Democrats would have a lot of single women in their ranks if Democrats want the government to protect them?
Makes perfect sense.
Because some people will feel they need protection.
Other people who are well armed and living in the country and making their own money just don't want the government to take their shit.
So you can both be right.
So there might be a way to find some unity by simply understanding that both sides are right about the single most important thing they're trying to do.
If you let both sides do the thing that they're focused on, you might actually find something that works.
Because you do need somebody to protect you from the government, but sometimes you need the government to protect you from other things.
Those can both be true.
So I put that out there as a symbol that things are not hopeless.
There might be some good stuff on both sides.
You know, the devil's in the details.
So the Department of Health and Human Services, they've got a new pronoun strategy, saying basically, it's okay if you inadvertently use the wrong pronoun.
Nobody's going to get fired for that.
But if you consistently use the wrong pronoun, it would be considered sort of a hate situation.
And you could get fired or punished for that.
Now, my only take on this is that this is what I call word thinking.
The whole pronoun situation is word thinking.
Word thinking is when you try to replace, you know, reason and facts and logic with a definition.
Because if you can get somebody to accept your definition, then it feels like you won all the argument that never happened.
So if somebody can say, but I'm a woman, then they win all the argument about can they play on the sport, what bathroom do they use, what's on their driver's license, et cetera.
If you give them, I can use my word any way I want, and it's different than how you use words, it gets them to win automatically all the argument, which you've not even had.
So that's called word thinking.
It's where you're trying to get there without the benefit of argument.
So the pronoun stuff is just that.
Now, most of you already know, I'm actually in favor of calling anybody whatever they feel comfortable with.
Like, I don't have a problem with that.
It's just that you better not have a problem with me if I do it wrong.
Sure, I'll humor people.
I will humor you.
For the same reason that I would I would honor your request to be called a Ms.
or Mrs. or Miss or whatever you want.
Anything you want.
To me, it's just part of the constellation of good manners.
And I also am often asked, what should we refer to you as?
I used to say cartoonist and then I said author.
Now I like to say disgraced cartoonist.
So when I'm introduced I like people to just say disgraced cartoonist.
I just like how it feels.
Honestly.
Sort of a pirate situation.
Anyway, so it's word thinking.
Don't get caught up on allowing it to be an argument.
It's not an argument for anything.
Most of you have seen by now, if you're on social media, the meme, a little story, I guess, about a 77-year-old man who shot some activists who were blocking the road of traffic.
Now, it's a 77-year-old guy.
He looks like he's American.
American, right?
But he was living in Panama.
He's a lawyer and was a professor.
And he just had a handgun, and when the activists were blocking the traffic for what looked like miles, the angry bearded white guy comes out with his handgun and starts, you know, trying to move stuff, but there was one big rock that was hard to move.
And then he gets sort of You know, surrounded by the, not surrounded too closely, but they were talking to him in a little group, and one of them is jabbering, jabbering, and apparently the guy could see that they were going to continue blocking the road.
So he just shoots two people to death in cold blood to unblock the road.
Now, I have very conflicting feelings about this story.
Number one, I don't think those people deserve to die.
And I think they were called climate activists, but I think they weren't, actually.
I saw some reporting that said it had more to do with some economic ownership of something.
So it was a bigger issue, not the environment.
But, in either case, they blocked the traffic of people who were minding their own business and just trying to get somewhere.
Just trying to get to work, get home.
Unfortunately, the guy with the gun has this look about him like a white guy who's just had too much.
He just reached his limit and decided, fuck it.
I'm just going to go out on my own terms.
Now, the real story here is probably completely different than what we imagined from the outside.
It could be mental illness.
It could be he has a terminal disease.
He's going to be dead in a month.
I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that could be factors that we don't know about.
Could be mental health, right?
Just mental health.
But what it looks like, and it immediately became a meme, is that he had simply reached his limit and snapped.
Now, if there's one thing I can tell you about my white man, and by the way, he's identified as a white guy and an American, is that true?
Give me a fact check on that.
He's not Panamanian, is he?
Is he a born in America, standard white guy?
So, big guy with a big white beard.
And he's a lawyer, so he knew exactly what he was doing.
Somebody says he's born in Panama.
A lawyer with dual citizenship, people are telling me.
Okay, that sounds about right.
Lawyer with dual citizenship.
But let me tell you something about white men.
And in the comments, I want my white men to tell me if this is a true statement or not a true statement.
If you're a white man, especially in America, And somebody says, hey, in order to avoid trouble, you're going to have to eat this shit.
You're like, what?
I'm not eating any shit.
Yeah, to avoid trouble.
How much trouble?
A lot of trouble.
It's going to be a lot of trouble.
All right.
All right.
I'll eat a little bit of shit, but I'm only going to eat a little bit.
All right.
We have a deal.
You eat a little bit of shit.
Next day, a little bit more.
Damn it.
Damn it!
Alright, I'll leave it.
Next day, a little bit more.
Here's what we white people don't do, is let you know all along the way how bad it is getting.
Did I mention that white people, or white men, it's probably all men, but white men for sure, are taught not to reveal their feelings?
Yeah.
So here's the thing.
And I think the thing that this guy tapped into with the audience is that he's the warning.
He's the warning.
And the warning goes like this.
You're not going to see it coming.
See, that's what happened to the activists.
The two people who were shot, they were standing there having a conversation.
They didn't see it coming.
What you don't see coming is where the last straw is.
So I say this not as a threat.
This is not a threat.
This is very much not a threat.
It's something you need to understand.
If you push black Americans, they will tell you from the first push.
Am I right?
Is that a fair statement?
If you're pushing black Americans, the first nudge, you're going to hear about it.
Which is fine.
That would be perfectly good form to complain the moment there's something to complain about.
It's America, right?
White people have been taught to shut the fuck up.
And stay shut the fuck up, because it looks weak.
It looks politically incorrect.
It just looks wrong in every way.
And you can't win.
White men complaining Is the lowest look you can have.
Do you know why I'm a disgraced cartoonist?
Because I'm a white guy who complained.
That's it.
If you're a white guy that complains, everybody fucking hates you.
Because they think it's sort of illegitimate.
So the only thing I want to tell you is, there is a breaking point.
And you're not going to see it coming.
And this guy broke sooner than other people break.
And I'm not saying we're right on the edge.
I'm just saying you've got to keep in mind that white men have been suppressed for so long that if a breaking point happens, it's going to happen really fast.
It's just going to break all at once.
So just keep that in mind.
Push as much as you want, but This old man's a meme for a reason.
The reason he hit a note is because we are that guy.
I am that guy.
Let me say it as clearly as possible.
If he thought his life was largely over, it's easy to become that guy.
All right, let's talk about the debates.
Chris Christie is anti TikTok and said it should be banned and had exactly the right answer because he talked about its persuasion power, not just its, you know, data security problem.
So Chris Christie had exactly the right take on this and I'm going to give him credit for that.
Vivek and You know, I said I'm endorsing Vivek.
I disagree with him on TikTok, which is fine.
We don't have to agree on everything.
That's not how anything works.
But Vivek is more of a free speech guy.
And he's also being consistent.
He's saying the goal is to win.
So if you're not using one of the main vehicles to win, are you really playing to win?
Now, that's actually a strong point.
Yeah, the free speech one is a little weaker, but we do like free speech.
But if you're not going to play the game, just leave.
And he's saying, I'm going to play the game.
I'm going to use all the rules.
I'm going to use all the resources.
And TikTok is one of them.
That's not a terrible argument for winning an election.
It is, however, a terrible argument for governing a country.
So if he used, if Vivek used TikTok to get elected and then immediately banned it, that would be the baller play of all time.
And I would totally be in favor of that.
But we don't have a suggestion that that's the play.
I imagine he'd go with the free speech argument if he were president.
And he would probably continue telling Republicans, you better get on TikTok because you're getting left in the dust.
Now, that argument Echoes the argument with abortion, right?
If you try to operate on principle, on abortion, you lose the election.
So, as I cheekily said the other day, everybody won.
This last election was one where both sides won.
Because Republicans got to win on principle, which was important enough for them to stand on it.
Democrats got to win by winning the election and electing leaders who will be part of the process of eventually hunting and killing the Republicans for being domestic terrorists.
So it was a win-win.
The Republicans got a moral victory and the Democrats gained power that they'll use to crush all Republicans.
So sort of a tie.
Yeah.
So Let's see what else happened.
Let's talk about Ron DeSantis first.
I don't remember anything about Ron DeSantis, except that he has a whiny pleading voice.
Listen to his voice.
For the pleading.
But I did this, but I did this in Florida.
They wanted to do this, but I did this in Florida.
It all sounds like he's not confident in his position, and he's trying to convince you of something that maybe he doesn't feel.
Now that's not what's going on.
I'm saying that when you use that tone of voice, a pleading tone, it's the opposite of Commander-in-Chief.
So he's like three levels away from looking like a commander-in-chief because he just has a weak voice.
Now, I don't mean that the tone of his voice is weak.
I mean the strategy of how he produces it.
creates a pleading sound to the ears that he doesn't have to do.
Because he doesn't do it all the time.
He does it when he's trying to make a strong point.
So the stronger his point, the weaker he sounds.
Oh, there it is, there it is.
Okay, I just realized what's going on.
The stronger he makes the point, Desantis, the weaker he sounds.
If it's an ordinary point, He'll say it in ordinary language, such as, this was a big problem in Florida, but we took care of it.
You see that?
It's not a big thing.
Yeah, that was a problem in Florida, we took care of it.
Very strong.
You just say, it's a thing, we took care of it.
But then when he's talking about something bigger, presidentials, we need to do this, we need to do that.
It turns into a pleading voice, and it's the opposite of Commander-in-Chief.
Listen to Vivek.
Vivek has commander-in-chief voice on every topic.
He will tell you with the same level of confidence and voice, small things, big things, it looks like he would have control from top to bottom.
Very strong.
So DeSantis, the only thing I remember about him is he sounded whiny, otherwise he disappeared.
Tim Scott, I'm actually sick of hearing his inspirational personal story.
Because I like it.
It is indeed a legitimate personal success story that is important.
I think everybody should know it.
Everybody should hear it.
I'm glad he mentions it.
But I felt like It was overshadowing policy thinking.
That was the main thing he was selling.
To which I say, Tim Scott, you're a Republican.
The stuff you're selling might be a good thing to sell to Democrats, but you're trying to be the nominee.
Do you know what Republicans don't need to hear?
They don't need to hear that if you work hard and do all the right things, that you can succeed despite whatever obstacles you had.
They're already on that page.
You know, Republicans are born there.
Yes, we get that.
Yes, Tim Scott, you're an excellent example of what we all already believe.
You're not selling us anything.
What am I buying?
Am I buying what I already have, which is the belief that a Tim Scott has existed and can exist and is a great symbol of America?
Absolutely.
But, so what?
Now, in fact, probably half of the people listening said some version of, well, yeah, I did that too.
Not necessarily that you were born black, but that you had some obstacles.
And you overcame them too.
All right, good.
Good for you.
It's just, that's not really something to sell to Republicans.
You know, it makes sense to tell Republicans you can sell it to Democrats, but he was selling to the wrong audience, is what it felt like.
So I don't think he made much of a dent.
But the real competition, of course, was Nikki Haley, who did great, largely because I think she has more female support in the Republican Party than some of the others.
And Vivek, wow, did he go hard.
So, summary.
It was Vivek's debate.
Vivek won the debate.
I think this is true, but as I think of every debate I've ever seen, I don't think I've ever seen anybody win a debate that hard.
Have you?
Has anybody seen anybody in any debate, whoever won as hard as Vivek did last night?
I've never seen it.
Now, the Trump stuff is different.
Because Trump is really, whether you love his style, if you love his style, then you did say he won all the debates, but then you listen to the pundits, and the pundits would be, well, you know, he was a wild man, he didn't exactly win.
Trump could actually give you a difference of opinion of who won the debate, and did, and did.
But in my opinion, I doubt any Democrat or any Republican who is serious Could have seen that debate and given it to anybody but Vivek.
Have you seen anybody this morning or last night on any news channel, left or right, did even one person think that anyone but Vivek won?
Have you seen it?
Did anybody think Nikki Haley won?
Did anybody think DeSantis made an advantage or that Tim Scott made a move?
I'm right, right?
There was a complete unanimous opinion that Vivek won the debate.
When do you ever see that?
I'm seeing some no's.
Was there somebody who said somebody else won?
We'll talk about the details in a minute.
Frank Luntz said what?
He thought somebody else won?
A drudge poll said Haley won.
All right, let's talk about that.
So, of course, it's all about the quotes.
If you were trying to pick a winner, here's the way I would do it.
Whose statements do you remember the most?
Whose statements do you remember the most?
Ludd said Haley.
Amazing.
So here are some of the things that Vivek said.
He started out by saying, we've become a party of losers at the end of the day.
Is it cancer?
The Republican establishment, let's speak the truth.
He goes, now keep in mind that Ronna McDonald, Ronna McDaniels, I'm sorry, not Ronna McDonald.
Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the RNC, was in the audience.
All right, imagine saying this on stage when the chairwoman of your own party is sitting in the audience.
This is what he said.
I mean, since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022.
No red wave, that never came.
We got trounced last night in 2023.
And I think that we have to have accountability in our party for that matter.
He said that to the Republicans right in front of him.
Now, that's just about the most baller thing I've ever seen in politics.
And apparently there's some reporting that Rana turned to somebody in the audience, somebody must have overheard it, and said, he's not getting a penny from us.
Meaning that the Republicans party won't give Vivek any help.
To which I say, you mean he won twice?
He won twice?
That you're not going to give him money?
Okay.
You just made me like him a little bit more.
Then he goes on, he says, look, the people there are cheering for losing in the Republican Party.
Think about who's moderating this debate.
Another amazing point.
Because the moderators were, you know, left-leaning media.
He says, think about who's moderating this debate.
This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk.
You know, separately, I think he said, you know, you know, why isn't Greg Gutfeld moderating the debate?
Now, all good names.
I think Elon Musk's not the right one.
Maybe he could attend or something.
But that's a pretty good point, isn't it?
Why do they agree to debates when people are going to ask them angry Democratic questions?
When it's literally the Republican primary, and they're having angry Democrats ask them questions?
Like, who decided that was a good idea?
I don't know, but was Ronna McDaniel part of that decision?
Would that be the decision-making process?
I mean, that's just a disaster.
That's a ridiculous, ridiculous thing to do, given that you have people on the right who would be the right people to ask the questions.
So Vivek is making sense all over the place.
He's showing guts all over the place, does not have a pleading voice, and is not apologizing for who he's offending.
Love it.
He also said that Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe for Ukraine, and that's why we're here.
Holy shit!
That's pretty direct.
Now, in terms of the legal process, you know, that's a claim that has not been established by the legal process.
However, we're watching the news, and the news seems to report something that looks a lot like that to me.
So he just says it in public.
Perfect.
Perfect.
But then he goes on to, he says about Nikki Haley, let's see, said she'd been enriched by foreign wars.
But here was the line that you'll never forget.
He referred to her as Dick Cheney and three inch heels.
But then it got better.
He said there were two people on stage with three-inch heels.
The other one being the joke about DeSantis having lifts in his boots, which I don't think is true.
I don't think it's true.
But, you know, it's out there as a meme or a belief.
So he takes down Nikki Haley and then just casually takes down DeSantis at the same time.
I mean, that wasn't much of a punch on DeSantis, but it was very memorable.
Now, the only bad part was, it was a killer line and obviously prepared, but he got talked over.
When he delivered the kill shot that there's two of them on stage.
Now I heard him say it twice because he tried to work in it again because he got talked over the first time.
It still worked.
But if he had not been talked over, it would have been the only thing you remembered.
It's the only thing you would have been talking about.
Do you know what's perfect about it?
Everything.
Did I ever tell you about visual persuasion?
Visual persuasion.
Oh my god.
You just see the heels, and then you see DeSantis in this little, you know, allegedly secret boot lift thing that I don't think is real.
That's visual.
Visual wins.
I mean, that's just a winning play right there.
And it was the most interesting thing people said, so you'd know that it would be repeated, etc.
Blah blah blah.
And then here was Nikki Haley's response.
To the heel thing.
She doesn't wear them for style, she wears them for ammunition.
What?
She was so proud of it, she said it on stage, and I was like, what?
And then she was so proud of it, she said it again later in a post on X, and I said again, what?
What?
What's the connection between high heels and ammunition?
I still don't know.
I mean, I legitimately don't know.
Does anybody have an idea what that meant?
Now, that seems like somebody fell apart.
So, and then there was, when they were talking about TikTok, He said that Nikki Haley's daughter was using it, I guess, until recently.
And the camera shows Nikki Haley's face when Vivek mentions that her own daughter was using TikTok, because she's also against TikTok.
And her face.
Here's the problem.
She lost her frame.
The frame is, I'm a powerful person.
You should not see me as somebody's wife or something.
I'm going to be commander in chief.
So that's the frame she's selling.
I'm the toughest one up here.
I'm tougher than the guys.
I'm going to go after these people.
Blah, blah, blah.
I'm tough.
As soon as Vivek mentioned the daughter, she snapped into mother mode.
Did you see it?
Did you see her face?
And then under her breath, but sort of low, but the microphones picked it up clearly, so it was part of the story, she said, you're scum.
And that was just mother mode.
Now, I don't object to it one bit from mother mode, right?
As a mother, fine.
That was a perfectly appropriate, defend your family, call this guy a scum.
However, she's not running to be your mother.
She's running to be your Commander-in-Chief.
And Vivek threw her out of the frame so easily that, unfortunately, it's going to play to stereotypes.
Meaning it looks like she's not emotionally stable to be the Commander-in-Chief.
Now that's what I saw.
I don't know if other people interpret it the same way, but I saw him shaking her with just a few words completely out of command mode and into mom mode.
And I don't want mom to be my president.
I love mom.
Mom is amazing.
Mom is better than a president.
But I don't want mom vibe in the office.
I don't want somebody who can that quickly be unframed.
And that was, in my opinion, that was the end of her run.
To me, that was the end of Nikki Haley.
I think Vivek just put the shiv in and turned it.
I've never seen anything like it, really.
It was amazing.
Now, Vivek already also went after her on getting rich.
Apparently, she was in debt while she was in government at the UN.
She was bankrupt or in debt.
That's the claim.
I don't know if it's true, but that's the claim.
Then she joined a military contractor, and then her family became multimillionaires soon after.
Now, it's a good attack point.
But it should be said that all of it is transparent and completely legal and unfortunately pretty common.
You don't have to like it, but I'll at least say nothing illegal and it's all, you know, sort of obvious.
So it's a fair attack point and he attacked it well.
And then Vivek talked about the fentanyl and, you know, he would be tougher on it and he said, If a Big Mac had Fentanyl in it, we wouldn't call that an overdose, you'd call it poisoning.
Because he's talking about how the Fentanyl is in pills that you think are something else.
So it's not just people knowing they're taking Fentanyl, it's people who don't know they're taking Fentanyl, which makes it poisoning, not an overdose.
Now, did he notice the visual persuasion?
If he had simply said, you know, it's more like a poisoning than an overdose, that's concept level and sort of, you know, using words to make an argument.
As soon as he says, if they put it in a Big Mac, you can see it, you can smell it.
You can actually smell it.
His persuasion was so strong, let me say it again, his persuasion was so strong, You could smell it.
You don't get better than that.
That's like killing it.
So what else?
Oh, and then at the end, his closing statements, oh my God, this was strong.
He says, end this farce, he's talking to the Democrats, end this farce that Joe Biden is going to be your nominee.
We know he's not even the President of the United States.
He's a puppet of the managerial class.
By the way, puppet's a good word too, because that's visual.
He goes, so have the guts to step up.
Guts is visual.
You actually imagine your guts.
To step up and be honest, step up is visual.
Imagine somebody literally stepping.
And be honest about who you're actually going to put up, so we can have an honest debate.
Biden should step aside and end his candidacy now, so we can see whether it's Newsom, Michelle Obama, or whoever else.
Just tell us the truth, so we can have an honest debate.
Oh my God, that's good!
Oh my God!
Oh my God!
It's exactly what you wanted to hear, but you didn't expect.
You didn't expect it at all.
And I like the fact that he threw Michelle Obama in there, because I think there's zero chance that she'll run for president, but she's so visual.
And in my opinion, she would be the weakest because she hasn't held office or become an entrepreneur or billionaire or anything like that.
So just throwing her in the mix is super visual.
So I mean, how many visual elements are in his casual speech?
It's just crazy.
It's very Trump-like.
All right.
So let me just say a little bit more about TikTok, since there's a disagreement there.
Here's what I think might be the source of disagreement about TikTok.
Somebody said to me, Scott, the mainstream media, the regular news, has been brainwashing people forever.
So, like, what's the difference?
TikTok's just another thing brainwashing people, but how different is it?
People have been brainwashed forever.
To which I say, Yes, but yes, it's true that the mainstream media has been brainwashing the public forever.
But the mainstream media, at the very least, is us.
At least it's Americans, right?
Even the Democrats, most of them, are not trying to destroy the country, right?
So, you know, in America, Persuasions are a whole different level than having your biggest adversary have a button, literally a button that says heat, that they can push and sell the Palestinian position over the Israeli position or turn you into a non-binary if they want.
Now here's the thing that people don't understand.
As a trained hypnotist, I can tell you this with authority, that if you ask a hypnotist Can you hypnotize people to do things that they wouldn't be inclined to do?
And the answer is, no.
No.
If you said, you're under hypnosis, and I said to you, take a gun and go kill your neighbor for no good reason, you wouldn't do it.
There's not even any chance you would do that.
There's zero chance.
If I said, here's the gun, kill yourself with it, you won't do it.
No, it's never happened in the history of hypnosis, it just doesn't do it.
So you say to yourself from those examples, ah, you can't really brainwash somebody to do something they don't want to do.
Wrong.
Do you know why?
Because when hypnotists tell you that you can't be hypnotized to do something that you fundamentally don't want to do, they're leaving something out.
The part that they're leaving out is the important part.
When I talk about it, I leave it out as well.
Do you know why?
Because I don't want you to know how much power I have.
That's why.
No, I could not make anybody shoot their neighbor.
I do not have that power.
But I could tell you your neighbor is worth shooting.
The first time I told you, you'd say, no, probably not.
By the hundredth time I told you your neighbor is worth a shooting, you'd start to think it was true.
So here's the thing that you need to understand.
I can't make something you don't want to do.
I can't make you do something you don't want to do with hypnosis.
But you know what I can do?
I can make you want to do it.
That's the part we leave out.
Intentionally.
Because if you knew how much power we have, you would shoot us immediately.
Luckily, you'll never know.
I can even tell you and you won't know.
Hypnotists can hide in plain sight.
Because we can tell you exactly what we're capable of.
And you'll be like, I don't think so.
And that's the end of the conversation.
So, I can just tell you directly.
Could I make you want to kill your neighbor on your own?
Yes, I could.
Yes, I could.
I just have to work on you over time.
And if I could use a tool, it'd be faster.
You know, if it's just me talking to you, it might take a while.
I have to work on you for a while.
But suppose I had a tool that was like really developed to be like the super hypnosis tool.
It already exists.
It's called TikTok.
So here's the thing you need to know.
TikTok can make you kill your neighbor.
TikTok can make you want to cut your balls off.
TikTok can make you want to remove your tits.
If you don't understand that, then you shouldn't be participating in the conversation about whether TikTok should exist.
TikTok can change your preferences.
Your actions will be the natural ones that come out of your preferences.
They don't have to tell you what to do, they just have to make you want to do it, and then you'll do it on your own.
So, the people who say, but these other social media things are also influential, that's true, but primarily they're influencing you in an American way that might be, you know, a different flavor than Republicans like, or different than Democrats like, but it's all American.
And fundamentally, our social media networks are not trying to destroy America.
The ones that are owned by Americans.
But you can't say that about China.
Now you might say to yourself, Scott, they say they're not going to do that, and there's no evidence that they've ever done that.
To which I say, if somebody has a gun to your head and they haven't pulled the trigger yet, what's that telling you?
Is that telling you it's okay?
They have a gun to our fucking heads.
The head happens to be our children.
If they haven't pulled the trigger yet, and I assume they have, but if they haven't, it doesn't mean they can't.
Maybe they're waiting for something juicy.
I would argue that they probably pulled the trigger.
On the Hamas-Israeli situation, because it would be an obvious place to do it.
And there are researchers who suggest it looks like it happened.
So that's why I disagree with Vivek, although I do think he backs his opinion by saying winning is more important.
But I'd love to see him win using TikTok and then ban it.
That would be the Willie Brown technique.
Willie Brown, when he was accepting money from tobacco companies, at the same time the legislature that he was in charge of, was debating smoking policies.
And somebody said, how can you be part of this smoking, where it's legal to smoke, discussion if you're also taking money from tobacco companies?
And Willie Brown famously and wonderfully said, if you can't take money from people and then stab them in the back, you're in the wrong business.
To which I said, no further questions.
And then I'm pretty sure that the law ended up banning smoking in public places.
I think that's what they were working on.
So he was right.
He took their money right in front of them, and then stabbed them in the back.
And then told the news.
Now, you wonder why he was such a popular politician for years in San Francisco?
Maybe that.
Maybe that.
All right.
Columbia faculty.
So, as you know, a number of them were pro-Palestinian, which some people will say is the same as pro-Hamas.
Now, I'm not going to characterize them.
I'll just say that, you know, there were more Palestinian-oriented and other people were more clearly Israeli-oriented in terms of their support.
But somebody did an analysis of the faculty there and found out that these, because now there are two letters, one is more pro-Israel, one is more pro-Palestinian.
from different members of the faculty.
But somebody analyzed where the faculty members come from, like which disciplines.
It turns out that the STEM faculty overwhelmingly supports Israel, and it was the humanities and social sciences that seemed to back Palestinian slash maybe a little bit Hamas activity.
Does that surprise you?
Here's another way to say it.
This was the polite way to say it.
Here's another way.
The smart people backed Israel, and the less smart faculty backed the Palestinians.
Now, I hate to say it, but probably, if you did an IQ test with the STEM teachers versus the humanities teachers, I think there'd be a difference.
I think there'd be a difference.
I'm just speculating.
I don't know that for sure.
But that's the way I look at it.
Anyway, Rasmussen did a poll on funding Ukraine separately and Israel separately versus putting it in one package.
To which I say, why is that even a question?
How in the world is there a citizen of the United States who thinks you should put two different things together so that the people voting on it have less choice?
It turns out a lot of people, a lot of people want the government to do the worst possible thing, which is omnibus bills.
What?
Now, I think they're just thinking that's the way they get what they want.
But as a process, it's the dumbest thing anybody ever did.
So the results were 50% of U.S.
voters think it's better if aid is voted on by Congress as standalone.
But there's still 35% who believe it would be better If Israel and Ukraine were part of one package, a third of the country thinks that putting different things together for one decision is better for the country.
How do you even support that idea?
I've never even heard an argument for it.
I've definitely heard arguments Why it's easier for members of Congress to get things through with the omnibus because they all put their pork on it and so you bribe people to vote for you?
I get that.
I don't like it, but I understand it.
But why do the voters like it?
Because the thing I just described is something that's good for the politicians to get their pork.
There's no argument for why it's good for voters.
I don't believe anybody's ever presented an argument why it's good for voters.
Does anybody know why that would be good for voters?
Is it only because nothing would ever be passed otherwise?
I don't know.
I like the nothing getting passed situation.
All right, well, David Sachs.
Also had something interesting to say about the Republican situation.
He said, Republican donors are perfectly comfortable running candidates with extreme views on abortion, but they will not tolerate candidates opposed to forever war.
This is why the GOP is a party of performative opposition, destined to lose, unimportant even when they win.
Ouch!
Ouch!
Now, I don't know if David Sachs identifies as one party or another.
I feel he's probably independent, just based on reading him.
But that's a pretty strong statement, that the GOP is basically a performative opposition.
The way I interpret that is, if they wanted to win, they would act differently.
Would you agree that if Republicans were trying to win, they would act differently?
Any agreement with that?
I think it's true.
Yeah.
Now, I don't even have an opinion of whether they should try to win.
Because standing on principle is not nothing.
You know, standing on principle to protect the unborn, if that's what you think is, you know, if in your view, that's just the most important thing.
And I can see why somebody would have that view.
You know, but at least you know you're dying.
If you think it'll make a difference, it makes more sense.
But suppose you knew it wouldn't make a difference.
What if you knew it?
Because I would think the argument would be you should be trying to convince your fellow citizens of your view, because that will work its way You know, culture comes before politics.
So if you're trying to change somebody's culture by changing the law, aren't you doing it wrong?
Shouldn't the long-term GOP strategy be to change people's minds?
And then downstream would be politics.
So I worry a little bit About the GOP strategy of trying to change your culture by changing your law.
I just don't know that that's the way anything works.
So it would explain why it's not working.
Now I also don't know that you could ever change people's minds.
People are people are pretty locked in on this.
So you could see why.
You know unfortunately the fall of the money works.
Well actually You want me to fix everything about abortion?
In my opinion, it's not a coincidence that Follow the Money explains why young women would prefer abortions.
Right?
Because if they have the child and they're not ready financially, it's the worst financial thing that could happen, even if it might be wonderful in other ways.
So, as I often tell you, that follow the money predicts even when it shouldn't.
Well, abortion is exactly the case where it shouldn't.
Would you agree?
Abortion is about literally, you know, what is life?
And at what point do you protect it or not protect it?
I mean, that's what it should be.
But is it a coincidence that it coincidentally is exactly the same as their financial interests?
It's not a coincidence.
In my opinion, if you change the financial element of it, It would be completely different.
For example, now this is not a recommendation.
This is more to think through the idea that it's really a money question and we pretend it's about other things.
It's kind of a money question.
And it goes like this.
Suppose you had a law that says if you forego your abortion and have your baby and give it up for adoption, you will receive $100,000.
What would happen to the abortion rate?
Well, probably people would have babies just to get the $100,000.
Is that okay?
It might be.
It might be okay.
Because we have a population decline problem.
But just use that as your mental exercise.
If you could imagine that money would solve the problem, then you have to ask yourself if it was always about money.
That's sort of a real head-scratcher, isn't it?
If you could solve it with money, was it always about money?
In my opinion, it has always been about money.
In my opinion.
Because the moment you paid somebody to have that baby instead of abort it, I think they'd have the baby.
You just have to pay enough.
Now we can never afford to pay everybody $100,000 to have a baby.
But as a mental experiment, if you think it's not about the money, well then you have to explain why money would change people's behavior if it's not about the money.
Because you know it would.
There's probably not one person here who's disagreeing with me that a whole bunch of single women who found themselves pregnant in a way they didn't want A huge percentage of them would say, you know what, for $100,000, put it up for adoption, gets a nice family, maybe.
You say we can't afford it?
You might be right.
So Michael says that we can afford that.
And you might be right.
Because $100,000 might be a drop in the bucket to what a baby normally costs.
So, you know, you could argue about whether the government should be paying it.
It's a separate conversation.
But, yeah.
And then if you are part of the party that thinks the government should be protecting you, then you have a perfectly consistent situation.
Oh, at the moment, the way the government protects single Democrat women is by allowing them the option of having an abortion.
So to them, just some number of them, that would feel like being protected.
Oh, you gave me this right, so now I can handle my situation the way I want to.
But suppose instead, the government protected you by saying that if you found yourself in that situation, we will support you.
Let's say you get free medical care.
Let's throw that in too, just for the experiment.
Free medical care and $100,000 the day it's given up for adoption.
Suddenly that looks like protection, doesn't it?
Right?
Because some number of women who have abortions do have a problem with it.
Is that true?
I'm not a woman, but can the women confirm that?
That there are some number of people who believe in abortion, Who have the abortion, but then they say they just don't feel good with it ever.
They're never quite right with it.
So if the government were protecting those women by allowing the birth to happen, but everybody comes out financially and health-wise and everything else, that would look like protecting.
Can you imagine a major candidate suggesting paying people to have the baby?
I'm going to make a prediction.
Somebody is going to suggest that.
That's my prediction.
Because we have an unsolvable problem right now.
Completely unsolvable.
And if somebody came up with a solution that people go, huh, that doesn't solve every problem, right?
Because you still have your rape and there'd be the edge cases and everything else.
But imagine that your proposition to single women Is that if you get pregnant against your will, or maybe even intentionally, you're going to make money.
How many votes did Obama get because people mistakenly believed they were going to get Obama phones?
I don't know.
Probably a few.
But if you can change the feeling that people have about Republican opinion on abortion, And you said, look, we will make you rich, not rich, but you know, we'll solve some of your problems and we'll keep you healthy during that process.
That's a pretty strong package.
Now, I don't know if it's a good idea because I haven't run the numbers and I don't know what would be the number that would be the right number.
It could be $50,000.
$50,000 is an insane amount of money, you know, if you're just getting by.
But $100, Sounds like a done deal.
If you tell somebody they'll get $100,000 and they don't see a way that they would ever have that much money in normal ways, I think you could literally buy the votes of young women.
Am I wrong?
Let's take Let's take this approach, just keep it in your mind.
So the Republicans have this problem with abortion, it will just keep them out of office forever.
Suppose they said this, and imagine the presidential candidate leading the message, right?
So the presidential candidate is the message maker for the rest of the people if he does it right, or she does it right.
So imagine Trump or Vivek, or even both of them, saying, here's the deal, we do not believe that a president should be making healthcare decisions.
Now that's a strong, strong statement.
And it gets you out of the business of saying what a person should do in their personal life.
But somebody still has to be in control.
And that's why you say, that's why we drove it down to the state.
Now, here's how we'd like to protect people.
We'll give you $100,000.
You know, this is my proposal, for example, to have the baby plus health care, even if you don't have health care.
We'll make sure you get quality health care the entire time you're carrying plus, you know, however many, you know, maybe six months after that or something.
And then that's how we'll protect you.
Because here's what I feel like.
I feel like if you're a single woman, you think the Republicans want to screw you.
And the Democrats want to protect you.
So Republicans should actually use the word protect.
Here's how we're going to protect you.
We're going to offer you the option of having the baby and making money.
But only you and your doctor and your state can decide what's legal or appropriate.
I'm giving you an extra option that you've never seen before.
That would be really strong, wouldn't it?
Am I crazy?
Give me a check.
I'm just sort of spitballing here.
Would it be crazy for a Republican president to say, you do not want me part of this decision?
I do not want to ever decide that somebody should live or die as an American if they've been obeying the law, right?
If somebody is a terrorist, I'll make that decision.
But you do not want your president to be arguing whether your baby should live or die.
The president should always be in favor of maximum human American life.
Always.
There should be no exception.
But should the states have an argument about it?
Well, that's up to the state.
Right?
It's up to the state.
It's up to the voters.
Should the doctor and the mother have some, you know, decision-making ability?
Yes!
And you should have more than the president.
This is one case where the voter should have far, far more power than the president of the United States.
Maybe the only one.
It's the best example of it.
But, as the President of the United States, I can make sure that you at least have another option that protects you, serves to increase the population, and keeps everybody healthy, and can take down the temperature of the people who think they need to kill each other over this issue.
Tell me this wouldn't work.
Would it work?
I mean, not only as a messaging thing, but actually a partial solution to the actual problem.
The word mandatory comes to mind.
Yes, there'd be no mandatory anything from the federal government.
Test is small.
There you go.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Is there something that could be tested?
Could you?
I mean, that's the beauty part.
I mean, the beauty part would be, you say, look, we don't know if this would work.
Wouldn't you love to hear that from a leader?
Wouldn't you love to have your leader say, we don't know if this will work, that's why we're testing it.
But here's the idea behind it, here's the transparency, we'll tell you how it goes.
I'd love to hear that.
All right, let's talk about, Ian Bremmer posted this, he said, oil prices are presently lower Than when, before the Israel-Gaza war began.
Who predicted that?
That oil prices would actually go lower?
But he also says that Iran's staying on the sidelines, despite long-standing support and training of Hamas, and nobody about to attack them.
How does he know that?
How does he know nobody's about to attack him?
I think he's right.
I hope he's right.
But apparently what is going to happen instead is that Biden has made at least one attack, maybe more, on the external proxies that have been attacking American bases.
To me it seems like we should wipe out all the proxies.
Would you agree?
You have to make being a proxy look like a really bad idea.
Because so far, being a proxy has been like a way to get money and power if you're a little leader of a terrorist group.
So you have to just make it a bad idea.
It's like, did you get money from Iran?
Yes or no?
Well, yeah, we got a little money.
Gone.
How about you?
Are you operating on your own or did you get money from Iran?
Well, you know, a little bit on our own, but a little bit of money from...
You just disappear.
We should literally wipe out every proxy.
You know, Hezbollah is a special case.
So, you know, maybe you do them last.
Or maybe not, because they're too powerful at this point.
But I would certainly take care of Hezbollah anywhere except Lebanon.
Lebanon, I still don't know what would be the right thing to do about that.
But at the moment, the US has a green light to take care of all the proxies.
So I think we could do that without getting Iran involved.
You know what's the interesting thing about Iran?
Is that somebody said, you know, how many, has it been hundreds of years or something?
Iran has never tried to take over another country.
Now you could argue, is that what's happening with, you know, Hamas and Israel?
Well, they might be trying to destroy a country, but I don't hear Iran saying we, you know, we want to put our flag in Israel.
Maybe they do.
But I do wonder that we don't understand Iran.
But they do seem to have a long history of not wanting to literally conquer their neighbor.
But their neighbors have tried to conquer them, Iraq in particular.
I don't know.
I have weird optimism that you could figure out how to work with Iran.
Because even though they have that crazy messianic part, I just feel like they have a very serious, reasonable part that they show all the time.
They show restraint when they need restraint.
They show not restraint when it looks like it could work.
Like everything they do seems to be rational.
And I don't know how you couldn't work with a rational partner if you tried and tried and tried.
So even with the 12th whatever, Mahdi or whatever it is, I think you could work with all of that.
The other thing that I'm wondering about is what do the Iranian people think about Hamas and Israel?
I heard, but I don't know that it's true, that the Iranian public is more pro-Israel Can anybody confirm that?
Because that would be the best argument for not attacking Iran.
The best argument would be that you've already won, meaning that the population is already pro-Western and anti their own government.
You could ride that situation a long time, even with a lot of cost to it.
And if you attacked Iran, people would reflexively back their own government, and they'd see horrors around.
So Iran's a tough one.
But I feel like we could do something there.
Here's the detailed news about what's happening in Gaza.
There are heavy gun battles.
And that's it.
That's all we know.
And that's about what I anticipated.
At some point when the cell phones start dying in Gaza, you're not going to hear anything.
And it might be a long time before you hear bad stories of things that happened there.
Now, allegedly, the Israelis are making some aggressive push.
But I think the pushes are probes.
And going after like a specific objective and then probably pulling back, but then also shrinking the perimeter.
I saw somebody argue that the number of Hamas killers who have been taken out is very small compared to the, I don't know, the claim of several thousand, nine thousand, you can't believe anything but You know, probably thousands of people have died, but only a small number of fighters.
So some people said, well, that's proof that you're doing something the wrong way.
You're killing all these innocents, but only the small sliver of actual fighters.
To which I say, the other fighters are already waiting in their graves.
I don't think you're counting this right.
If you had, you know, 99% of an army was already in sealed coffins below the ground, technically alive.
You would not say to yourself, man, those guys are good.
They're getting away.
No, you would say to yourself, they're already in a sealed coffin.
They're already buried.
They've got not much time left.
So I would argue that, you know, every armed Hamas fighter is basically dead or dying.
And even though they haven't sealed off all the tunnels, they will.
I don't think there's any doubt about that.
I said Putin lost.
No, I didn't.
Crazy talk.
All right.
I think I said anything could have happened.
All right.
Yeah.
And there's a comment here that Persians are wonderful people.
That's my experience.
So all of my contacts in America with people who came from Iran or have any background, they're amazing people.
Just universally awesome culture and people.
So that's part of it.
All right, so we won't hear much about that.
That, ladies and gentlemen, This is my way too long show for the day.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I remind you that if you're looking to buy gifts for this holiday, you better order this one soon.
The beauty of this book is it's really perfect for a gift for almost everybody.
Because it's got reframes to improve your life in a lot of different ways and maybe just reading one sentence changes your life.
Quite a few people tell me that their lives have been changed.
But the reason I tell you to do it early is because I'm independently published, which means that Amazon prints the books as they're ordered.
So I don't want you to be like a week before Christmas, because I don't know how quickly they can print them.
So if I were you to be comfortable before the end of November, and I'm not even positive that's soon enough, but that's what I'd go for.
I'd go for before the end of November if you look, if you're trying to get it as a gift.
And if you're looking for the Dilbert calendar as a gift, it only exists in digital form this year and only for subscribers of the X platform.
If you're subscribing to me, you can get the comic and the daily comic that's new, Dilbert Reborn, but you also see daily the Dilbert calendar.
And the Dilbert calendar will be the comic that ran exactly 10 years ago on that same date.
As a running theme.
And I think you'll like seeing what 10 years ago looked like in Dilbert.
At the same time you're seeing the new one.
And you'll be able to look at the contrast.
I think you'll enjoy that.
So you can also see that on the Locals platform.
scottadams.locals.com And that has more political stuff.
So if you don't want to see the political stuff, for a few extra bucks.
Lots of other content as well.
And you just want the comic, go to the X platform.
